If Winter Comes eBook

“They went aside. I wasn’t looking
at them. I was watching a chap on a bike tumble
off in front of a motor bus, near as a toucher run
over. Suddenly some one shoved past me and there
was old Sabre getting into the cab with this chap
who had come up to him. I said, ’Hullo!
Hullo, are you off?’

“We’d arranged, d’you see, to part
there. I had to get back to my chambers.
He turned round on me a face grey as ashes, absolutely
dead grey. I’d never seen such a colour
in a man’s face. He said, ’Yes, I’m
off,’ and sort of fell over his stick into the
cab. The man, who was already in, righted him
on to the seat and said, ‘Paddington’ to
the driver who was at the door, shutting it.
I said, through the window, ‘Sabre! Old
man, are you ill? What’s up? Shall
I come with you?’

“He put his head towards me and said in the
most extraordinary voice, speaking between his clenched
teeth as though he was keeping himself from yelling
out, he said, ’If you love me, Hapgood, get right
away out of it from me and let me alone. This
man happens to live at Tidborough. I know him.
We’re going down together.’

“I said, ‘Sabre—­’

“He clenched his teeth so they were all bare
with his lips contracting. He said, ‘Let
me alone. Let me alone. Let me alone.’

“And they pushed off.

“I tell you what I’m going to do.
I’m going down there to-morrow. I’m
frightened about him.”

CHAPTER IV

I

Hapgood had said to his friend of the effect on Sabre
of Mabel’s action against him: “He’s
crashed. The roof’s fallen in on him.”
And that had been Sabre’s own belief. But
it was not so. There are degrees of calamity.
Dumfounded, stunned, aghast, Sabre would not have believed
that conspiracy against him of all the powers of darkness
could conceivably worsen his plight. They had
shot their bolt. He was stricken amain.
He was in the crucible of disaster and in its heart
where the furnace is white.

But they had not shot their bolt. The roof had
not yet fallen on him. They had discharged but
a petard, but a mine to effect a breach. The
timbers of the superstructure had but bent and cracked
and groaned.

Their bolt was shot, the roof crashed in, the four
sides of his world tottered and collapsed upon him,
with the words spoken to Sabre by that man who approached
and took him aside while he stood to take leave of
Hapgood.

The man said, “I daresay you know me by sight,
Mr. Sabre. I’ve seen you about the town.
I’m the coroner’s officer at Tidborough.
You’re rather wanted down there. I’ve
been to Brighton after you and followed here and just
took a lucky chance on finding you about this part.
You’re rather wanted down there. The fact
is that young woman that’s been living with
you’s been found dead.”

Sabre’s face took then the strange and awful
hue that Hapgood had marked upon it.